Snallygaster- Maryland

In the early 1700s, German settlers moved into Maryland from Pennsylvania, bringing with them many of their myths and legends. Among these were tales of the schnelle geister or “quick spirits”, supernatural beings that could sometimes be merely annoying-- knocking things over and creating bad smells-- and sometimes malevolent-- stealing children or forming huge battalions of writhing specters to rain down on helpless and unsuspecting humans.

As the Germanic legends merged with the larger melting pot of beliefs in Maryland, schnelle geister became snollygoster, then finally snallygaster, a general term for any sort of boogieman or mysterious creature.

In 1909, the term Snallygaster took on a distinct, terrifying form when the Middletown Valley Register of Frederick County reported that a huge, dragon-like creature had flown out of a cave in South Mountain and snatched up a local man, Bill Gifferson. The monster carried Grifeerson to the top of a hill where it pierced his throat with its needle-sharp beak and drank his blood.

Sightings of the Snallygaster exploded after this incident. Suddenly newspapers all over Frederick County, and even into nearby West Virginia, were overflowing with reports of terrifying run-ins with this blood-drinking dragon. Drawing on local folklore, the beast was quickly dubbed Snallygaster, though a few papers briefly gave it alternative, equally colorful names such as “Go-devil”, “Bovulopus”, “Octollopus” and “Gigantiloeutus”.

Descriptions of the creature varied, but most claimed that it resembled a winged reptile with iron claws and a pointed beak for draining its victims of blood. It was also said to have a single, enormous eye in the center of its forehead. A few stories claimed that it even had tentacles like an octopus-- though where these were located on its body or what it used them for was never specified.

Some tales claimed that seven pointed stars would drive off the beast, which allegedly led many in Frederick County and surrounding areas to place these symbols on the outside walls of their barns and houses. It is worth noting, though, that stars with four, five or six points were already common folk motifs on the houses of many German settlers (seven-pointed stars were rarer, but not unheard of), so this detail may have just been an embellishment playing off an already prominent decoration in the South Mountain area.

Snallygaster reports continued throughout 1909, gradually fading away by the end of the year.  The frenzy was finally capped off by a tongue-in-cheek letter to Middletown Valley Register written by an “expert” who claimed that the beast was of a species of monsters that lived deep within the Earth. The beast terrorizing Frederick County, so the writer claimed, had come to the surface after an earthquake opened a chasm in the South Mountains leading to its subterranean home. The article concluded with a report of a fictitious scientific expedition that had seen the creature fly back into its cave, at which point another earthquake sealed it up.

The Snallygaster resurfaced again in 1932 in a new flurry of newspaper reports. This time, though, the beast appeared to meet its demise when the Register reported that local prohibition agents had busted into a bootlegger’s hideout only to find the place abandoned and the partially-dissolved corpse of the Snallygaster floating in the moonshine mash where it had apparently fallen after being overcome by the alcoholic fumes.

Despite its apparent death, the Snallygaster would continue to make sporadic appearances in local papers over the years, even inspiring a 1976 article about a fictitious Hemmingway-style safari to track it down once and for all.

Snallygaster at rest, standing on its mantle-foot and modified tentacles.

The bizarre appearance of the Snallygaster, along with its colorful, often outlandish history, bears more than a passing resemblance to many other tall tales of mysterious and deadly flying monsters heard throughout America- and indeed, throughout the world. This is no coincidence, for the Snallygaster began as a hoax created by the editors of the Middletown Valley Register to drum up sales for their paper. The story proved so popular that other papers picked it up, often embellishing the tale with their own details. Newspapers have a long history of punching up and sensationalizing stories-- or even creating stories whole cloth in the age before journalistic integrity- to attract and entertain readers.  Indeed, many old papers were more like the Weekly World News (or most internet message boards, to use a contemporary example) than a reputable source for information.

In more recent reports-particularly internet articles- the Snallygaster has developed an “archenemy” in the form of the Dwayyo, a black-furred biped sometimes described as being ape-like, sometimes said to be more like a werewolf or a dog walking on its hind legs. According to folklore, the Dwayyo will attack the Snallygaster on sight, though no explanation is given for this animosity. Nor is the mammalian beast itself given much of a backstory. The first reported sightings of the Dwayyo came in a series of 1965 articles in the Frederick News written by George May, which described a black, bigfoot-like monster terrorizing the county. 

May’s articles may actually be responsible for the rivalry between the Dwayyo and the Snallygaster. One of his last articles suggested that increased sightings of the furred beast signalled the eclipsing of interest in Maryland’s other, draconic monster. His prediction, though, did not bear out since the Snallygaster has proven to be the far more popular creature.

Mythical monsters often serve as a metaphor for aspects of humanity. Sea serpents and krakens can represent our awe and fear of the ocean. Wendigo personify the terror and loneliness of the boreal woods and the desperation that leads to cannibalism. Elves, trolls, huldra and other fey beings symbolize the mystery and danger of the deep forest. The Snallygaster, too, once held a dark and potent symbolism-- specifically the evils of racism. Many of the early reports claimed that the beast specifically targeted African-American victims.

Furthermore,  the Lumberwoods.com website points out:

"In Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State, the author directly alludes to such attitudes by stating: 

“In the Middletown Valley section of western Maryland the fabulous ‘snallygaster’ flies into a little settlement of log cabins that served as slave quarters prior to the Civil War. The great bird preys upon Negro children out after dark, and on occasion has even been known to carry off a full-grown man to its lair in the near-by mountains.”

It is worth noting that these previous lines, specifically the phrases "preys upon," "after dark" and "carry off," are highly suggestive of the practice of lynching. In the contemporary period so-called "sunset towns" were declared wherein African Americans would be barred from entering after nightfall. Any "violators" would be sought out by lynch mobs, dragged to a secluded location and "dealt" with."

The symbolism behind a monster may change over time, of course. Vampires were once personifications of our fears of death, illness and, in the case of Stoker's Dracula, rape and sexually-transmitted diseases. Today they often symbolize a longing for immortality and the simultaneous fear of watching everyone and everything one loves crumble to dust around them.

The Snallygaster likewise has undergone an evolution in what it represents. Its association with racism and the evils of lynching has all but disappeared. Now the beast, like the Mothman, Thnuderbirds, Bigfoot and other cryptids, symbolizes the unexplored, a longing for mysteries and a fear and simultaneous desire for the unknown. 

For my interpretation of the Snallygaster, I drew inspiration from descriptions of it as a one-eyed, tentacled dragon. However, rather than make it a reptile with cephalopod arms, I made it a flying squid with wings formed from the fin around its mantle. The hind legs are also extensions of the body fin with fringe-like papillae serving as “toes”. The front limbs of my version are actually highly modified tentacles with hooks sprouting from the tips of the suckers forming the “claws”.

The majority of information for this post came from an excellent book by Patrick Boyton called Snallygaster: The Lost Legend of Frederick County. It’s short, but thorough and definitely worth checking out.

SOURCES

Snallygaster: The Lost Legend of Frederick County by Patrick Boyton

Mountain Monster: The Snallygaster

Lumberwoods: The Snallygaster

The Van Meter Visitor-- Iowa

Visitor in crouching form.

In the early morning of September 29 1903, U.G  Griffith was returning to his home in Van Meter, Iowa, when he spotted a bright light like an incandescent torch on a nearby rooftop .  He assumed, at first, that a burglary was in progress, but that idea changed when the light jumped from the roof and sailed to another building across the empty dirt road. Griffith found the phenomenon odd but didn’t think much else of it. This innocuous event, however, was the beginning of a week of hauntings in the small Iowa town by a creature that has come to be known as The Van Meter Visitor.

The being was described as a tall , black or dull gray humanoid with wings, a beak and a blunt horn on its head that emitted a bright, blinding light. Bullets were said to bounce off of it with a metallic clang (a feature which is oddly common among otherworldly visitors. The Hopkinsville Goblins were also impervious to bullets, as were many of the “dragons” and “thunderbirds” sighted throughout the American West. More on those in a future post).

The creature appeared always at night. It seemed more curious than aggressive, merely popping up in residents’ windows to shine its light around. One man reported seeing it asleep on the top of a telephone pole. He shot at it, but the creature merely crawled down the pole using its beak like a third foot as a parrot does, then flew off into the night.

Shooting at the Visitor was, unfortunately, the typical response, as it so often seems to be when people encounter otherworldly beings in these incidents. By the end of the week a large posse had gathered around the abandoned coal mine outside of town that some men had seen the creature flying in and out of on its nightly journeys.  They waited through the night and early morning to blow the being out of the sky when it returned.  And return it did, this time accompanied by a smaller member of its species. Though everyone unloaded their guns, as before the bullets merely bounced off the creatures with a metallic ping.  Sailing over their assailants as if they weren’t even there, the Visitors disappeared into their subterranean den never to be seen again.

The reports of the Van Meter Visitor give little clue as to what it might have been.  The most skeptical explanation was that it was all a case of mass hysteria embellished with fanciful details for the newspapers.  Some have suggested that the creature could have been a fear-fueled misinterpretation of a large bird such an out-of-place pelican or eagle owl.

Cryptozoologists have drawn parallels between the Visitor and the pterosaur-like Thunderbirds sighted throughout the western states.  Others have compared it to the West Virginia Mothman or Cornish Owlman.

Investigator Kevin Lee Nelson (who, along with his partners Chad Lewis and Noah Voss, wrote what’s probably the most definitive-- and maybe only-- book on the Van Meter Visitor) suggests that the creature might have been a being from another dimension that somehow slipped through a window into our world. Nelson writes extensively about this “ultraterrestrial” hypothesis, which was first proposed by paranormal investigator John Keel in his book The Mothman Prophecies.

Of all the supernatural explanations for the Visitor, this is by far my favorite.  I particularly like Nelson’s suggestion that the winged, glowing creature people saw may have just been the closest their minds could come to comprehending the being’s true, hyperdimensional form.  

I’ve used this ultraterrestrial concept for my depiction of the Van Meter Visitor. I like the idea that the Visitor seems, at first, like a recognizable monster-- in this case a winged dragon as depicted above.  But when it leaps into flight, as illustrated below, one quickly realizes that it is not even remotely related to a dragon, or anything reptilian.

The Visitor in flight.

 It’s whole body unfolds like a fleshy flower. The neck and “head” become tentacles while the wings transform into a membranous hood. The three-toed “feet” become fins on the bottom of a gelatinous body while the arms prove to be nothing but more highly-modified tentacles.

 I based this body design on the swimming sea cucumber Enypniastes eximia. The “head” is styled after the bizarre, hinged, almost completely detachable head of the Stoplight Loosejaw Malacosteus 

niger.

Enypniastes eximia by Alice Viola on Flickr

Stoplight Loosejaw by Alex Ries

Sources:

The Van Meter Visitor: A True and Mysterious Encounter with the Unknown
by Chad Lewis, Noah Voss and Kevin Lee Nelson

Des Moines Register article

Jersey Devil-- New Jersey

The Devil walking along the ground with folded wings.

Sorry for the long delay, folks.  I've been pretty busy the last few months with family stuff and a writing project.  But now I'm back to the cryptids again with the Garden State's favorite monster.

The Jersey Devil, also called the Leeds Devil, is a winged beast that supposedly inhabits the Pine Barrens along the Jersey coast. It is said to have the head of a horse, wings of a bat, cloven hooves and a forked tail. The beast has been sighted numerous times throughout the twentieth century, starting with a rash of reports around 1909.

   

Before I talk about the beast's origins, though, I think it's worth talking a little bit about the Pine Barrens themselves. The Barrens are part of the Atlantic Coastal Plain-- a flat apron of land along the Atlantic shore of North America formed from minerals eroded out of the Appalachian mountains and washed down towards the sea.  Soils here are sandy and acidic, which made it nearly impossible for early settlers to grow their traditional crops.  Yet, despite the name, the Barrens are ecologically diverse and species-rich.  Natural fires, typically caused by lightning strikes, play a huge role in the Barrens ecosystem. Where fires are frequent (relatively speaking. Fires usually only occur naturally once every three to five years), the land is occupied primarily by pitch, scrub and shortleaf pine (Pinus rigida, P. echinata and P. virginiana, respectively), with wide open spaces between occupied by grassy savanna.  Where fires are more infrequent-  whether due to human intervention or wetter soils-- the forest is a tighter mix of pines and species of oaks.  Dark swamps of Atlantic white cedar form along the water ways and numerous bogs-- complete with carnivorous sundews and Sarracenia pitcher plants-- dot the landscape. The Pine Barrens are a pretty cool region and worth check ing out. Go here to learn more.

Now, on to the Devil itself. The classic story of the Jersey Devil's origins concern a woman known as "Mother Leeds" who dwelt in the Pine Barrens in the late 1700s.  According to some legends, Leeds already had 12 children and was so frustrated when she discovered that she was pregnant with a 13th that she openly wished that this one would turn out to be the Devil himself.  When the child was born, it was monstrously deformed.  It could walk and  talk fresh out of the womb and, after cursing its mother,  the creature flew up the chimney and out into the night. Since then the Leeds Devil has haunted the Pine Barrens, emitting its piercing shriek and terrorizing the inhabitants.

However, Brian Regal, who teaches the history of science at Kean University, has a less supernatural, though still historically intriguing, explanation for the Devil.  According to Regal, the story can be traced back to Daniel Leeds, a councilor to the early governor of New Jersey.  Leeds, a Quaker, published an almanac which made use of astrological data which did not sit well with other members of the Society of Friends, who found this aspect of his publication a bit too "pagan". Leeds did not take well to being insulted by his fellows, and ended up publishing even more esoteric works that  slowly pushed him farther and farther away from other Quakers. His reputation was further degraded by his outspoken support for royal authority at a time when thoughts of revolution were stirring in the minds of many throughout the colonies. Eventually Leeds soured in the public eye to the point that he was accused of literally working for the Devil. 

When Daniel Leeds retired, he gave his almanac business over to his son Titan, who quickly got into a feud with future Founding Father Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, wanting to mess with Titan it seems, used astrological signs to predict the date of his rival's death.  When the date came and went with Titan very much alive, Franklin joked that the man was, in fact, dead, but his printing company was being run by his unquiet spirit.

The unpopular reputation of the Leeds family, combined with Franklin's joke about one of them being a spirit from the Other Side slurried together in the local gossip circles until the whole clan became "political and religious monsters" -- (The Jersey Devil: The Real Story, Brian Regal)

Matters weren't helped any by the fact that Leeds' personal coat of arms bore a wyvern on it-- a creature remarkably similar to later descriptions of the Jersey Devil.

So it seems the Jersey Devil is not a hexed child, a bizarre unknown animal or an outright demon.  Rather it is a recollection of a recollection of gossip about a much-maligned Revolutionary-era family.

Go here to read Regal's much more detailed article.

For my depiction of the Jersey Devil, I based the head on the Hammerheaded Bat (Hypsignathus monstrosus), since to me the boxy head of the classic Devil depiction from 1909 somewhat resembles this creature.  The body of the beast is that of a Vampire Bat (Desmodus rotundus)